WESTWOOD - Walking into the Rubber Duckie Day Spa on Eighth Street, I am greeted by a face familiar to thousands. Ernie, sporting his usual striped tee, welcomes me with his friendly smile. I find Bert, his business partner and best friend, preparing a cup of peppermint candy tea in the brightly-colored salon. Sitting down with the two well-known puppets, I ask them how well the neighborhood is accepting diversification.

“They give us dirty looks whenever we walk into Price Hill Chili,” says Bert, the features on his conical yellow head appearing stern and foreboding.

"Gee Bert, I don't think it's so bad," counters Ernie. Gazing lovingly at the love of his life, Ernie strikes a note of optimism. "Just last week Mrs. Schnitzenhaggen from the bakery next door brought us a nice batch of snickerdoodles."

"Ernie, Ernie, Ernie," sighs Bert, shaking his head. "Our mini-cooper had its tires slashed last Wednesday.”

Malone disagrees with them, and claims that spanking is the real child abuse. "Let's be honest. Smacking or spanking a child with your bare hands is straight-up pedophilia. I guarantee I will never lay a hand on any kid's butt in my after-school S&M program. Why use your hand, when you can use a premium leather belt? Why discipline just the buttocks, when you can also discipline the chest, back, arms, legs, and neck?"

"Let's face it.  We're not a baseball town anymore.  We're a football town," said Mike Brown to a crowd of reporters at a Tuesday press conference.  "And the truth of the matter is, not everyone can afford the ridiculously high price of a Bengals football ticket.  But with my Brown Square proposal, average and even low-income families can enjoy the experience of a Bengals home game, just a few hundred yards from where it is actually being played."

The plan calls for the installation of twelve 240-inch, high defininition televisions, where three televisions would be placed on each side of the fountain.  Additionally, a bust of Brown's head would be placed atop the fountain.

FAIRFIELD - The chain gang has returned to Ohio.  Last Monday, wearing black-and-white horizontal stripes and chained to each other at the ankle, Butler County inmates picked up litter along Ohio 129  in Fairfield Township.

Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones started the program because jails are too "cushy."  Meals are assembled by dieticians; inmates watch color TV and are provided with free health care.  "I don't want them to come here like it's Disney World," Jones said.

CINCINNATI - Cincinnati’s only black news source celebrated 50 years this week by only printing three stories in it’s online edition.

One story in particular, written by Dan Yount, about former jockey Jimmy "Wink" Winkfield, resembled a grammatical and structural Hindenburg (not unlike this article) by quoting the jockey in the title and then giving no further reference to it in the actual story, thus leaving the reader in a state of bafflement.

Cincinnati State English Professor, Geoffrey Woolf read the story and was outraged by Yount’s lazy writing style. (Although Woolf was unreachable for comment, I lifted comments that he made from an old research paper that I did for one of his classes and simply replaced any reference to my paper with the Herald references.)

DOWNTOWN - Among the many new changes to Fountain Square that the 3CDC has announced today, one overlooked aspect is the new mini theme park designed to make downtown more family-friendly. 

“Cincinnati has had a number of image problems,” says 3CDC’s President and CEO Steve Leeper.  “From the homeless to the eye sore of that useless stage on fountain square to the plain fact that Masonites don’t consider downtown to be a good place to bring the family.  I believe we have found a solution for all three of those issues tied into on neat little package.  We are replacing the Fountain Square stage with a Homeless Petting Zoo.  We expect this to be fun for the whole family!”

Homeless Petting Zoos have already been used in test markets in the Washington DC area.  The response has been very positive as expressed by seven year old Josh Ward, “Ha, ha, ha, look mommy!  He’s licking my hand!”

He's a virtual unknown. He uses two names. He hates Justin Jeffre. He's in a band and he's founder of the All Night Party. He lives in Kentucky. And he's running for Mayor. He's Gordon Amerika.

I caught up with Brad, er, Gordon hard on the campaign trail, in-between stops at City Hall and the Skyline on 7th. Though I'm pretty sure his main platform is to spite Justin Jeffre, we delved into the rest of the issues.

Cincinnati Dealer: Who would win in an arm wrestling match, you or David Pepper?

Gordon Amerika: Hard to say. If you get that to actually happen, that would be very very funny. Let's do it. Consider this an official challenge, David. Wrap your biceps in P&G dollar bills, old boy, you'll need 'em to pay me off. I can get pretty pissed off pretty quick, and that's really all you need in that sport. Why won't you return my emails, David? Are you afraid, David? Did you not consider comic terrorism, David? Do you not know what that means…David? You have no idea how to deal with people like us, David.

CINCINNATI - Justin Jeffre’s bid for another 15 minutes of fame suffered a serious set back last week when VH1 announced that they would be passing on a proposed reality series that would have followed Jeffre in his attempt to become Mayor of Cincinnati.

VH1 vice president Tracy Mcgraw said that Jeffre is too uncool, even by VH1 standards.

"When we get proposals like this we have a specific formula that we plug in as a way to see if it would work", said Mcgraw. "We take the total sales of his last album and divide that by the total sales of his last movie in which he starred. Then we divide that number by his age. What we come up with in this case is, shit. The Golden Girls would get better ratings."

An Interview With Jeff Berding: Possible Democratic Party Endorsement For City Council

PASTRY:  So you are making a bid for the Democratic Party’s endorsement for city council.  Doesn’t your employment as a Vice President with the Cincinnati Bengals pose a conflict of interest for your candidacy?

BERDING:  I see no conflict of interest here.  I work for Mike Brown.

PASTRY:  Given that you helped push for the deal that resulted in the city and county paying for 94% of a $458,000,000 stadium for a privately owned business and resulting in a ½ cent sales tax being imposed on all tax payers why should city residents vote for you?

BERDING: Because I have access to money & funding to run a campaign.

PASTRY:  Hey, that’s my wallet!